Firefreak on 28/11/2008 at 19:47
I'd like to share a little nostalgia with you people - perhaps some will join in...
After a 'long' time I had to change my email address since the newest provider that bought my previous one doesn't port the old baggage. I was pretty much forced to do what comes close to moving the home address on the internet.
It's nearly 12 years that I connected with the world (meaning getting internet access) with my now old address; Back at that time internet provider (here in Austria) were paid after the hour, not by download size. My 'beginners' access had a quota of 3 hours per month, leaving about 6 minutes per day for e-mail transfer via 33.6k modem. Should have worked in theory, but some of the bills I recovered showed values well above 1000 ATS (~100 USD) -- Quake II CTF being one of the culprits I recall :p .
The address in question had 9 characters for the username (firefreak), something that had to be payed extra (another 600 ATS) at registration since it exceeded the normal limit of 8 characters. I remember very well the moment as I fiddled the extra 'k' into the mask on the registration postcard (!).
I'll spare you the list of (hostile) take-over/fusions/buy-outs of my ISPs - I recalled 9 changes of different bill-headers, but my address was always maintained (together with all the access-upgrades up to ADSL lately). Now, after all these years of taking this address for granted and registering everywhere, my newest ISP rejected to take it over.
But from now on I should be able to survive further of these changes as my new address is bound to my own domain. At least I hope - let's see how we communicate in another decade from now.
I spent several hours this morning to recall various sites I needed to inform, go through a load of user control panels, address change verifications and the like. Nearly all went well so far (for those remembered), yet ICQ rejects to give me my password that I forgot for my (nowadays) rare 6-digit user number. But since I'm not using ICQ anymore, why bother?
The good side of that is that I'm implicitly relieved from all the old things I probably have forgotten or which I wouldn't need anymore (that might very well count for both registrations at sites and for people I knew :erm: ); Interestingly, some of the sites I'm registered at and wanted to delete my account haven't got such a function (or I couldn't find it).
So, how attached to your address(es) are you people?
Medlar on 28/11/2008 at 21:12
Very attached to my gmail account, freaks me occasionally when I get the "system is busy please try later" message, sure that the servers had fried and all my mail is gone! apart from that I love gmail. Having gone through various windows based puter crashes and loosing outlook mail a number of times web based mail just has to be the way to go, and now gmail is doing the video chat things are getting better and better.
Matthew on 28/11/2008 at 21:19
I still wonder whose messages I will never read as a result of Incamail disappearing overnight, with all my saved items, back in 2004.
TBE on 28/11/2008 at 21:21
I've had the same e-mail address since 1996. There are things that show up there periodically that I forgot I signed up for like many years ago. I went through a period when I was overseas, and wasn't able to logon to hotmail, and they deactivated my account. When I finally was able to logon again, it wiped all the saved e-mails and addresses I had stored. I lost track of a couple old friends that stopped e-mailing me, since it must have been my turn to write and I no longer had their addresses.
So the best advice I can give is, print out vital e-mails or addresses about once a year or so.
The one surprise I get a couple times per year is updates from Fraps. I forgot I purchased it so long ago.
rachel on 28/11/2008 at 21:22
I'm attached to my nick, not to the provider. With Gmail I'm on my fourth gen email addy I think, and I still keep the Hotmail ones handy, plus a few that I use as throwaway for registrations.
Before that I used caramail (now Lycos) and Yahoo!. I usually switched to the next because the current became too bloated.
Gmail has been my main account for a few years, and contrary to the previous ones, these mails are actually important so I back it up locally with Thunderbird through POP3 as it could go boom without guarantees, being in Beta and all.
I have the option of having my own mail through my domain but I don't use it.
Yet.
june gloom on 29/11/2008 at 02:02
Mine (gmail) spawned about 4 years ago from a long-dead running gag, but since everything is tied to it, I've so far resisted attempts from people who think they know better to get me to change it. I have another, a school email, but I don't check that very often nor do I want to.
